Invigorating
Prolonged periods have passed since I previously posted. Are past pains present palliatives? It is possible. So suddenly I speak.
I have been at work.
I don't honestly recall how enveloped I was by Viz at first; perhaps Cat or Carl could speak better to that. By the time I left, though, I was finding work increasingly easy to set aside, partly from demoralization but partly because there was a limit to how interesting it could be. There were some fascinating problems there, to be sure, but it was relatively rare that I got to solve them (the StandardConceptConverter (IIRC) being a rare exception) - instead, my job was largely a question of principled engineering and persistent application of not-terribly-demanding creativity, which I suppose is the steady-state of good software development.
The work I've done for Apple has been more captivating. There is something, je ne sais quoi, something about language implementation which holds me, which burrows into my soul and nests, laying foundations in my thoughts and forming struts from my dreams. It occupies me; I am controlled in all quarters. I wake to the playing of problems, and the melody leads into the rushes of work, the stanzas beating out my pulse. When I worked on JavaScript (†), I would wake and remember only representations of values, waiting to be laid out more plainly, more quickly. It cannot be borne; I am terrified; I am torn apart; I am reorganized; I am born again. It is quite disturbing how easily I can find myself thinking of nothing else.
And so I must begin writing again, or else the mad musical soul colonists will eat me and leave nothing behind but code.
† To ward off the spirits: JavaScript is a terrible language. So is C++. It is a sad truth that both have their own unique importance and so justify becoming the foci of much implementation effort. There is a Pareto-like principle at work here, although I have far from abandoned the dream of better languages; really I think it would impossible to work on such inferior languages and not constantly hope for betterment. Complacency is a luxury of the contented.
I have been at work.
I don't honestly recall how enveloped I was by Viz at first; perhaps Cat or Carl could speak better to that. By the time I left, though, I was finding work increasingly easy to set aside, partly from demoralization but partly because there was a limit to how interesting it could be. There were some fascinating problems there, to be sure, but it was relatively rare that I got to solve them (the StandardConceptConverter (IIRC) being a rare exception) - instead, my job was largely a question of principled engineering and persistent application of not-terribly-demanding creativity, which I suppose is the steady-state of good software development.
The work I've done for Apple has been more captivating. There is something, je ne sais quoi, something about language implementation which holds me, which burrows into my soul and nests, laying foundations in my thoughts and forming struts from my dreams. It occupies me; I am controlled in all quarters. I wake to the playing of problems, and the melody leads into the rushes of work, the stanzas beating out my pulse. When I worked on JavaScript (†), I would wake and remember only representations of values, waiting to be laid out more plainly, more quickly. It cannot be borne; I am terrified; I am torn apart; I am reorganized; I am born again. It is quite disturbing how easily I can find myself thinking of nothing else.
And so I must begin writing again, or else the mad musical soul colonists will eat me and leave nothing behind but code.
† To ward off the spirits: JavaScript is a terrible language. So is C++. It is a sad truth that both have their own unique importance and so justify becoming the foci of much implementation effort. There is a Pareto-like principle at work here, although I have far from abandoned the dream of better languages; really I think it would impossible to work on such inferior languages and not constantly hope for betterment. Complacency is a luxury of the contented.